Her single life provided training for her role as angel-wife. As a wife and mother she obeyed her husband, adored him, and promoted his spiritual and physical well-being. She supervised the servants’ activities under the watchful eye of her husband and became the devoted and loving mother of a large Victorian family. She was an acquiescent, passive, unintellectual creature, whose life revolved entirely around social engagements, domestic management, and religion. (Peterson, 678).
“The Angel in the House,” a term coined by Victorian poet Coventry Patmore (1823-1896), is possibly the most popular term for describing women in the Victorian era. Confined to the home, women were expected to be domestic, innocent, and utterly helpless when matters outside the home were concerned. Not only was the home where women would be protected from the dangers of the outside world, it was also where they could keep their innocence and be a beacon of morality for their husbands. The Angel in the House ,as Elaine Hartnell comments, was a “domestic woman, woman who has no existence outside the context of her home and whose sole window on the world is her husband.” (Hartnell, 460). Following the separate sphere ideology, husbands would venture out into the world to make money while their wives stayed at home and cared for the house and the children.
The term applied exclusively to middle-class women of the period. As young women, they were educated but were not taught any skills that would be beneficial to them outside of the home. Some tasks that young women learned were piano, needlework, and fine arts, specifically painting, and on occasion, they did charity work with their mothers. having never been exposed to the hardships of the world, it was easy for them to keep their innocence (Peterson, 678).
Patmore’s poem first introduced and defined the term. The poem describes a Victorian marriage, but is mainly written from the husband’s point of view. Even though the woman in the poem does not have her own opinion, Patmore praises women throughout the poem. At first glance, this might seem like a love poem. But after further analysis, it is clear that Patmore’s praise for women only relates to their ability to benefit men. The woman is a part of the poem, but she is not there to be heard, the reader is meant to see her through the husband’s eyes. Her purpose is to support the man’s opinion and in turn, make the reader support his view as well.
Patmore’s development of the concept of the Angel in the House is found in “The Lover”. In this excerpt, the male speaker perceives his wife as a spiritual figure and as a means to get closer to God:
His merits in her presence grow, To match the promise in her eyes, And round her happy footsteps blow The authentic airs of paradise. (Patmore, lines 316-319) This passage clearly demonstrates how the male speaker views his wife as a spiritual figure through the wording that is uses. For example, the last line, in which the speaker uses the word “paradise”. The way in which the speaker views his wife as almost a divine creature changes the way that he feels in his own home and brings him closer to heaven.
As far as being an “angel”, Patmore depicts women as spiritual beings, whose purpose is to bring men closer to God. While Patmore places women on a pedestal throughout the poem, the idea that they are innocent angels is somewhat infantilizing: “…the ‘normal’ woman, to meet the requirements of both irrationality and innate innocence, must be like a child” (Hartnell, 466). Despite Patmore’s praise of women, he still believes that they are inferior to men and only serve a purpose when aiding their husbands. It is also important to remember that the poem is written after all from a man’s perspective. This requires a broader view of the relationships between men and women, as we must look to the time period in which the poem was written. As Elaine Hartnell notes: “This centrality of the male narrator may be construed as simply keeping in with the gender relationships obtaining during the Victorian era” (Hartnell, 461). As modern day readers, this view of women in relation to men might be somewhat unsettling because of how a woman’s role in society has changed over the past century. However, this objectification of women was customary for the period and is a consistent theme throughout Victorian poetry.
Works Cited Bennett, Paula. "‘The Descent of the Angel’: Interrogating Domestic Ideology in American Women's Poetry." American Literary History 7.4 (1995): 591-610. Hartnell, Elaine. "Nothing but Sweet and Womanly: A Hagiography of Patmore's Angel." Victorian Poetry 34.4 (1996): 457-76. Peterson, M. Jeanne. "No Angels in the House: The Victorian Myth and the Paget Woman." The American Historical Review 89.3 (1984): 677-708. Patmore, Coventry. "The Angel in the House." The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory. Ed. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle. Peterborough: Broadview, 1999. 743-44.
Her single life provided training for her role as angel-wife. As a wife and mother she obeyed her husband, adored him, and promoted his spiritual and physical well-being. She supervised the servants’ activities under the watchful eye of her husband and became the devoted and loving mother of a large Victorian family. She was an acquiescent, passive, unintellectual creature, whose life revolved entirely around social engagements, domestic management, and religion. (Peterson, 678).
“The Angel in the House,” a term coined by Victorian poet Coventry Patmore (1823-1896), is possibly the most popular term for describing women in the Victorian era. Confined to the home, women were expected to be domestic, innocent, and utterly helpless when matters outside the home were concerned. Not only was the home where women would be protected from the dangers of the outside world, it was also where they could keep their innocence and be a beacon of morality for their husbands. The Angel in the House ,as Elaine Hartnell comments, was a “domestic woman, woman who has no existence outside the context of her home and whose sole window on the world is her husband.” (Hartnell, 460). Following the separate sphere ideology, husbands would venture out into the world to make money while their wives stayed at home and cared for the house and the children.
The term applied exclusively to middle-class women of the period. As young women, they were educated but were not taught any skills that would be beneficial to them outside of the home. Some tasks that young women learned were piano, needlework, and fine arts, specifically painting, and on occasion, they did charity work with their mothers. having never been exposed to the hardships of the world, it was easy for them to keep their innocence (Peterson, 678).
Patmore’s poem first introduced and defined the term. The poem describes a Victorian marriage, but is mainly written from the husband’s point of view. Even though the woman in the poem does not have her own opinion, Patmore praises women throughout the poem. At first glance, this might seem like a love poem. But after further analysis, it is clear that Patmore’s praise for women only relates to their ability to benefit men. The woman is a part of the poem, but she is not there to be heard, the reader is meant to see her through the husband’s eyes. Her purpose is to support the man’s opinion and in turn, make the reader support his view as well.
Patmore’s development of the concept of the Angel in the House is found in “The Lover”. In this excerpt, the male speaker perceives his wife as a spiritual figure and as a means to get closer to God:
His merits in her presence grow,
To match the promise in her eyes,
And round her happy footsteps blow
The authentic airs of paradise. (Patmore, lines 316-319)
This passage clearly demonstrates how the male speaker views his wife as a spiritual figure through the wording that is uses. For example, the last line, in which the speaker uses the word “paradise”. The way in which the speaker views his wife as almost a divine creature changes the way that he feels in his own home and brings him closer to heaven.
As far as being an “angel”, Patmore depicts women as spiritual beings, whose purpose is to bring men closer to God. While Patmore places women on a pedestal throughout the poem, the idea that they are innocent angels is somewhat infantilizing: “…the ‘normal’ woman, to meet the requirements of both irrationality and innate innocence, must be like a child” (Hartnell, 466). Despite Patmore’s praise of women, he still believes that they are inferior to men and only serve a purpose when aiding their husbands. It is also important to remember that the poem is written after all from a man’s perspective. This requires a broader view of the relationships between men and women, as we must look to the time period in which the poem was written. As Elaine Hartnell notes: “This centrality of the male narrator may be construed as simply keeping in with the gender relationships obtaining during the Victorian era” (Hartnell, 461). As modern day readers, this view of women in relation to men might be somewhat unsettling because of how a woman’s role in society has changed over the past century. However, this objectification of women was customary for the period and is a consistent theme throughout Victorian poetry.
Works Cited
Bennett, Paula. "‘The Descent of the Angel’: Interrogating Domestic Ideology in American Women's Poetry." American Literary History 7.4 (1995): 591-610.
Hartnell, Elaine. "Nothing but Sweet and Womanly: A Hagiography of Patmore's Angel." Victorian Poetry 34.4 (1996): 457-76.
Peterson, M. Jeanne. "No Angels in the House: The Victorian Myth and the Paget Woman." The American Historical Review 89.3 (1984): 677-708.
Patmore, Coventry. "The Angel in the House." The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory. Ed. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle. Peterborough: Broadview, 1999. 743-44.
MM/HWS/ENG 214